I've never tried to return a product to Adorama, but I did have to spend several weeks fighting with them after they charged several thousand dollars to my credit card and then refused to refund it when they couldn't supply the item I had purchased. I'll certainly never deal with them again.

This has me confused! We never charge a customer's credit card until we are physically in the process of shipping an order out; our system simply doesn't allow it to happen.

So I'd be interested to hear more about what happened to enable those safeguards to be ineffective on this occasion: Helen@adorama.com - so I can double-check that it could not possibly occur in the future.

No worries to the board regarding Adorama. If this type of thing happens, they said it will be corrected regardless if the original camera can be found or not. They also mentioned it would be overnighted. I can't see a problem here, thanks.

I am not sure what the Adorama slamming is about but this is a very good company that stands by their products with great service. If you read and follow their return policy you will have no problem.I speak from experience over the many years.

I am not sure what the Adorama slamming is about but this is a very good company that stands by their products with great service. If you read and follow their return policy you will have no problem.I speak from experience over the many years.

Update: Adorama is going to send me an E+ conditon 1D Mark IV. I'm really appreciative of this. Adorama is a great company and they certainly proved it here regarding this issue. I have done all of my business in the past with them, and now will continue to do so in the future. Great job Jacob, Jack, and Helen, I really appreciate you guys. This makes me very happy and you can expect me to buy much more equipment from you in the future. Again thank you. I highly recommend Adorma to anyone.

We have spent three pages of forum stating-restating-counterstating how good or (in some small instances) how bad adorama has been to us. But interestingly the OP has not chimed in at all after the original post. He has not put forward what problem he faced, nor has he come forward to state what is the current condition of his problem - resolved or still lingering. At this point I cannot even be sure if he at all had any problem or it was something stemming out of some kind of buyers remorse.

I've made a number of purchases from (most often) Adorama and B&H over the years, no problems with either one. I don't get to Manhattan often but visited B&H last time, I'll visit Adorama next time. Even if they don't have the little bowls of candies sitting around like B&H I'm sure I'll enjoy it . I started out ordering more from B&H but needed to order some things during one of their holiday closure periods. Adorama was open for business, got mine, and continues to get it.

I started this forum about an issue I was currently having with Adorama and I didn't want to discolor them until I knew I would get complete satisfaction. At this time, with the help from Adorama's Ms. Helen Oster, I have rec'd a full refund.

My complaint was simple, at least in my mind.Here is what happened:Ordered a new lens Sunday night only to realize I had also won the same used lens on Ebay, to my surprise, so I decided to cancel the new lens (Zeiss 100 F2.0 $1,875.00). I called Adorma right then they opened and started to cancel my order when I got cut off in the middle of our conversation. That started it right there. I called back immediately and got another CS rep who said it had just shipped but I would get a full refund.It was a Paypal purchase and they deducted my account immediately. What they didn't tell me was that the shipment would have to go all the way to CA from NJ and back to them, get inspected and then wait possilbly 8 days for a refund. I was fuming. I didn't have product and couldn't possibly get my money back until they 'had spoken'. Spoke with numerous reps and felt this was terribly wrong since I didn't even receive anything.The shipment from NJ made two transfers to get to CA and neither one returned the shipment to the seller.To top it off, after the CS rep said it was cancelled and I would get a full refund, I get an email 7 hours later that my shipment had just left!OK, fine, I thought. I'll receive the shipment and then just pay to have it returned on my nickel. Seems I couldn't do that either and I still could not get my refund until their shipment goes all the way to CA and back to NJ.Long story, Ms. Oster pulled some strings and got my refund in 5 days.Thanks again Helen!

Second and last story. Sold my Canon 300 f2.8L to Adorama a few years ago after negotiating and agreeing to a mutual price. Lens looked like a war horse but was super sharp and fast. Problem was it took almost 6 weeks to get the check from Adorama! After numerous emails, hours on the phone to numerous reps, broken promises, you name it, I learned a valuable there.

In summary, I don't care if they have 300,00 boxes they have to account for daily, my box is just as important as any other of the 299K boxes and I've worked hard to get it.

So, would I go back to Adorama? Maybe...but only to purchase.

My apologies for not following up sooner.

Logged

A few cameras (Canon, Fuji & Sony) and lenses and a lot of creative energy and imagination."You never learn anything until you mess it up."

I started this forum about an issue I was currently having with Adorama and I didn't want to discolor them until I knew I would get complete satisfaction. At this time, with the help from Adorama's Ms. Helen Oster, I have rec'd a full refund.

Thanks are due in no small part to my colleague, Leah, who really did so much of the pushing to get this turned around so quickly

Items that qualified for free shipping that are being returned will have our standard shipping charges deducted from refund or credit. The return shipping cost (the cost to send an item back to us) is not refundable.

I can see why this might be an unpopular policy, so I'd like to explain; when we offer 'free' shipping (not really 'free', cos someone has to pay it, ie Adorama), it's like us offering you a discount on the goods or a gift.If we were giving you a couple of 'free' batteries as a gift with your order, and you returned the order because you changed your mind, you wouldn't be upset with us if we hoped to get the batteries back as well - I assume?It's the same with the shipping. We use part of what would otherwise be profit for us - we are a business, after all - to cover the cost of the shipping. If you return the item to us we potentially lose twice over; once because we can no longer sell the item as new and again if we don't ask you to cover the shipping cost that we gave you as a 'gift' WITH the order.

Can you imagine how many people could potentially abuse the free shipping alongside the 30-day returns period to 'rent' goods from us? (Actually, a number already do....) Ultimately, the price is paid by everyone else.

Not sure if I've explained it clearly, so please don't hesitate to email me directly if I haven't! Helen@adorama.com

Helen,

The problem is that your competitors, Amazon to be exact, does not have such strict and unpopular rules. I hope Adorama management realizes that.

When I buy something from Amazon, I pay no shipping, and if the item has a problem, I return it, no questions asked, and get my money back in a total of 4-5 days (from the time of me dropping the item off at UPS). They never charge for return shipping, in fact, they even pay EXTRA for insurance on your behalf for items that have MSRP of higher than $1,000. Now please tell me, why would people buy from Adorama instead of Amazon when Amazon price matches Adorama instantly?

I definitely see your point, but unfortunately we are in year 2012 and if you guys don't want to loose market share, you will need to adjust your strategies. Take me for example:

- I just recently bought a 5d Mark 3 with 24-105 kit lens, Canon 50mm L F1.2, 2 nano UV filters, and bunch of other things. I spent around 5.5-6k.

- I wanted to sell my used gear so I said, why don't I go to Adorama, explain them what I want to do, and maybe they'll offer me a decent price on my used equipment.

- Guess what, I was offered ridiculously low prices on my used items. So low that, my jaw dropped. A lens for example that everyone was selling in Amazon/E-bay for $250, I was offered $120. That's half of market price. I understand you have to also earn, but you need to see the big picture (which they didn't). I was ready to spend a ton of money on your shop only if you were a bit lenient for a few hundred dollars. But anyways, even then I was ready to pull the trigger as a few hundred dollars wasn't going to stop me. I only wanted to mention this so that maybe you can relay the message.

- Next thing I realized, for NJ, you pay sales tax! That's like another extra $400, bam, right there it hit me. But guess what, even then, I still wanted to go for it, because just as I was going to do the checkout, I realized you offered bundles amazon didn't (with extra lenses or software, which I could sell later on to make up the difference).

- Finally, it was the "return policy" that had me close my browser and go to amazon.com. I'm a customer, I will go to the place that has the best service possible with the least amount of headaches. After reading your return policy, I said, what the heck, I'm not going to deal with this. When I want to return something to amazon, I click 2 buttons, print a UPS shipping label that they pay for, I put the stuff in the box it came with, and I return. Nobody asks me questions. Granted I don't abuse the system and I'm sure some people do, but I don't care, why should I? It's my hard earned money, and I want the best service possible. When I buy a $2,000 lens and it's back focusing, I don't want it to be fixed or sent it to canon, I don't care. I want a brand new one, BEFORE, I send out the old one so that I don't stay without the lens. You see, that's how a consumer's mind works. If I bought the camera from you and if it had an issue, I would have to go to UPS, pay for shipping, pay for insurance, and worry about the shipment and loose sleep over if the box made it safely to your warehouse. With amazon, as soon as I drop the package at UPS, my responsibility ends. It doesn't mater if a meteor hits the UPS store, they still give me my money back (or the replacement). If I want to exchange something, they send me a replacement, no questions asked, they don't charge my card or put authorization on it, they give me 30 days to return the old one.

By the way, of all the things I bought, I didn't have to return anything. So if I bought them from Adorama, it would have been fine, but I just didn't want the "risk" of headache, does that make sense?

The problem is that your competitors, Amazon to be exact, does not have such strict and unpopular rules. I hope Adorama management realizes that.

Hand on heart I have never thought of Amazon as a competitor.

Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ: AMZN) is the world's largest online retailer with headquarters in Seattle.

It has separate retail websites for USA, Canada, UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Japan and China. There are 12 fulfilment centers in the US; 3 in Canada; 7 across China and Japan; 12 in the UK; plus 11 across the rest of Europe.

Adorama is a family business, a specialist photographic retailer with many staff who are photographers themselves - with our office above a single store in NYC, and one warehouse in New Jersey......